Escapism
by VampedVixen
Summary: An alternative ending to 'Dead Things'.


My goth-brain and my can't-we-all-be-normal-brain were fighting over the making of this story. Goth-brain wanted lots of death, gore, and bad stuff, and Normal-brain didn't want to hurt anyone. Hopefully I didn't make it too dark. I took out a couple of things, to appease Normal-brain, but still it's kind of dark to appease Goth-brain. Am I the only one worried by all this Goth-Normal-brain talk? Gah, I'm developing multiple personalities *hee*   
  
BTW, I think this story is only one step up from a BabyMimi-fic in its utter badness, but I'll let you decide:  
  
Escapism  
By Vixen  
  
Groggily, Jonathon opened his bedroom door. Slowly waking up he brushed back his hair and straightened his Babylon 5 t-shirt. Silently he stared at Warren as the other boy locked one of the rooms on the other side of the lair.  
  
Warren tossed Jonathon the key, "Have her up and running by the time I get home." With no other words exchanged Warren left. It was their usual morning ritual. The shorter boy didn't even bother to ask where he spent his days anymore. Wherever it was, he was gone from the lair, leaving Jonathon alone to his thoughts.   
  
Jonathon picked up the metal key that had clattered to the cement floor when he had failed to catch it. Laying it top of the computer monitor he glanced towards Andrew's room and wondered if he would come out today. Ever since the incident with the girl he had holed up inside his room, never talking to anyone, hollow and dead. They all were.   
  
It had started as a game. 'Its like candy... juicy pulsating candy.' Famous last words. He'd never thought of it as rape, until the girl had burst their candy-coated fantasy. After that Warren had almost killed her after that, hitting her over the head with a champagne bottle. Maybe it would have been easier on her if... Jonathon shook his head as he switched on the television, though his thoughts never left the girl.   
  
  
  
  
  
After a few hours Jonathon got up made up a lunch, grilled cheese sandwiches, the only thing he knew how to make. Placing it on a plate, he carried it over to the locked room. He turned the key and opened the door. This room was virtually empty, cement walls and floor, one small window on the top of the far wall. Only the smallest rays of sunlight filtered through, dimly lighting the room. There was also a mattress laid next to a pipe running that ran along the wall.   
  
One of the girl's wrists was handcuffed to the pipe as she sat on the bare mattress. Jonathon could tell she had been crying, as she usually was when she woke from the trance. Everyday for the past three months he walked in to find her crying. Warren never had to see that. She was still calling him 'Master' when he left, and by the time he came home she was drugged again.   
  
Jonathon sat the plate of food down next to her, offering her a well-needed meal, and tried not to look her in the eyes.   
  
"What's your name?" Her voice cracked a little.   
  
Taken by surprise, he glanced up at her. She had looked so powerful when she first came to the lair, while she was trying to get away, but now she just looked like a little girl. "I don't think I should tell you," He muttered.  
  
"Why? Who am I going to tell? I can't turn you into the police, because let's face it, I'm never leaving," depression morbidly rang through her voice. "Warren's going to kill me when he gets bored using me as his new toy."  
  
"He-he loves you, he wouldn't..."  
  
"Love?" Rattled her handcuffed hand, she asked, "This is love?"  
  
"I should go," Jonathon got up to leave, not wanting to have this conversation. Or any conversation at all with the girl. It was better if he didn't know her.   
  
"Why?" Softly she asked after a moment.  
  
"Why what?"  
  
"Why did you do this to me?" Her eyes filled with tears again, "Why won't you let me go? Please."  
  
"He'd kill me," Jonathon's voice shook.  
  
She swallowed the lump in her throat and turned away, looking at the wall. Spitefully she stated, "My name's Katrina... just thought you should know."   
  
"Oh god," Jonathon thought as he shut the door behind him, "It has a name."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
After spending the past two hours on the computer, he checked the cerebral dampener. Fully powered up, it was waiting to do its job, and with Warren coming home in a half hour it was time. Reluctantly Jonathon lifted it from its stand, and grabbed his protective glasses.   
  
Once again he entered the small room where Katrina was being kept. The plate of food sat untouched next to her. As Jonathon approached she stared in mixed horror and disgust at the object he held. Sitting handcuffed to the pipe in the wall, there was no escaping it. She had tried to think of some way to over come its persuasion the first few weeks, had kept thinking that if she was strong enough it wouldn't get to her, it wouldn't be able to touch her.   
  
Jonathon gestured to the plate of food, "You should eat something."  
  
"Why bother?" Bitterly she asked.  
  
"Because if you don't eat something, you'll starve to death."  
  
"There are worse things than death."   
  
"Please..."  
  
"I'm not hungry, okay?" With her free hand she chucked the plate across the room, where it shattered against the wall. A quiet hush filled the air once more, the argument over. Slowly she faced him, dreading the night to come, and the device that would take away her freedom, but wanting to get it over with so that the next day would come and she would be safe from Warren's hands once more.   
  
Jonathon held out the cerebral dampener, pointing it at Katrina. She closed her eyes, awaiting the magical wave to come over her. His hand shook as he took aim; he took a deep breath trying to steady himself, and grazed the button on the side of the silver ball with his finger, almost pressing it and destroying one more piece of Katrina's soul in the process. At the last moment, however, Jonathon threw the dampener at the cell wall. It shattered into a million pieces and fell like crystal rain, as he sank to his knees, sobbing.   
  
After a moment he looked up at her, "We have to get you out of here."  
  
"Oh god, thank you," Katrina had tears in her eyes as well. "Thank you."  
  
Jonathon moved quickly, remembering that Warren was due back at the lair any minute. He took out the key, the same one that worked the door, and unlocked Katrina's handcuffs.   
  
She rubbed her sore wrist as her conviction returned; she was really going to get out of there. No more, no more, no more...   
  
"Come on," Jonathon held the door to the room open for her. They rushed through the basement apartment as swiftly as possible, and ran up the stairs to open the door. Jonathon put his hand on the doorknob, but was too late. It swung open and Warren stood in the doorway. Katrina's eyes went wide with fear and she backed down the stairs, into the room below.  
  
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Warren growled low in his throat at Jonathon, who wasn't backing down.  
  
"We're leaving Warren. I'm not going to let you do this anymore."  
  
"You? You think you can stop me? The only reason I let you live in the first place is so I had someone to take care of Katrina for me. But you failed at that, let her out of her cage. What kind of lackey are you if you can't even handle that?"   
  
"Not yours apparently," Katrina piped up from below. "He's the only semi-sane one around here."  
  
"Is that so?" Warren looked at the other boy. A punch was thrown and they started struggling on the stairs, until Warren got the upper hand and knocked Jonathon down the stairs, onto the cement floor below.   
  
Jonathon tried to catch his breath after the wind was knocked out of him. He lay on the floor, trying to get up. Katrina ran to his aid, but as Warren came near she backed away like a frightened puppy. She watched as Warren continued to beat the hell out of the one who she had hoped would be her rescuer.   
  
Jonathon over at her, right before he lost consciousness, uttering a silent, "I'm sorry."  
  
And then the fight was over. Jonathon was dead.  
  
Warren stood up, brushing his pants off. After coming back to herself after the shock of watching the brutal attack, Katrina tried to run behind Warren towards the stairs but he grabbed her around the waist, "Where are you going? The fun's just begun."  
  
"Warren," She tried to stay calm, "Let me go!"  
  
"I loved you Katrina, and this... this is how you repay me? But running away? Trying to leave?"   
  
She tried to reply, but Warren wrapped his hand around her mouth, "Shh, don't speak... you only lie anyway. All you bitches do." Painfully he dragged her towards her old prison, as she tried to dig her feet into the ground, trying anyway to stop from going back there. "You're never leaving me, don't you get that?" Once inside the room, though, he saw the remains of the cerebral dampener. Dropping Katrina, panicked he walked over to the small glass crystals. "No, nonononono..." Running a hand through the sand-like crystal, he shook his head. His creation, his only way of keeping Katrina a slave, it was all ruined.  
  
Wasting no time, Katrina saw her exit as Warren left her for a moment. Quietly getting up, she ran to the door of the room and with a satisfying bang, shut it and it locked from the outside, trapping Warren inside the prison he had built for her.   
  
As reality came back to him again, he screamed at her, "Katrina, let me out of here!" After a few minutes of banging on the door, in vain, he slumped to the floor.  
  
"I'm calling the police now, Warren." Katrina held the phone to her ear as she yelled back at him. "It's over."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A few weeks later, Katrina had return to her regular life but the memories of what had happened still haunted her. Too many nights she had woken from nightmares, fighting against unseen hands, only to find that it was over and she was safe in her own bed. Today she would finally put it behind her, she promised herself. She would find closure. There were just two things she needed to do first.  
  
Her footsteps fell heavily on the hospital floor, as Katrina made her way through the white hallway to the small door at the end. Greeted by a guard, she was led into the meeting room. There was a row of desks separated only by a glass partition.   
  
He looked up as she came in, his heart skipping a beat as it always did when she was near, but he held those thoughts back. Acceptance that they weren't meant to be was the first step, or at least that's what the hospital's psychiatrist had said.   
  
Hesitantly, Katrina sat down and picked up the phone as he picked up the other end. "Hello Warren."  
  
"Katrina," he nodded a greeting, still trying to push away the desire that welled up inside of him. "They told me you were coming."  
  
"I had to. I had to see if..." She paused, "If you were different. I want to know..."  
  
"If it was working, if I was better, or if I would come after you again once I got the chance," he laughed weakly.  
  
"Something along those lines," Inching away from the glass window, fear still controlled a part of her.  
  
Sensing her uneasiness, Warren frowned, "I'm so sorry Katrina. I don't know why I...no, actually, I did it because... I loved you, I really did, and I just," Looking at her he remembered all the times they had shared before Katrina left him, before April, "lost myself in you."  
  
She frowned, not knowing how to reply.   
  
"I never wanted to hurt you. Everything just got so messed up."   
  
"Goodbye Warren," Katrina said through the phone, "Get well." Hanging up the phone, she stood up and walked out of his life forever. Warren stood as he watched her go, knowing that the memory of her walking away would haunt him forever.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
Later that day, Katrina walked through the Sunnydale graveyard, or at least one of them. Reading off the names, she was trying to find one in particular. Someone who had helped save her, even after his past indiscretions, she would always remember him as the one who had risked his life, and lost it, for hers.  
  
"'Jonathon Levinson'," Reading off a headstone, she paused, "'Small in stature, but big of heart.' That must be you," She smiled, placing the rose she had bought down on the grave. "Where do I begin? First I want to tell you thank you. You saved my life; you set me free. I don't know if I could have gone on like that anymore... And I forgive you for what you did, even though a part of me is still angry. In the end you came through, and that's what matters." Pausing she brushed a piece of fallen hair from her face, as she stood up.   
  
"I went to go see Warren today, he's... getting better, I think. We were both taken in, weren't we? Conned into believing he was worth our attention. Why did you ever hang out with a moron like him for anyway?" She sighed, "You know, I can hate him as much as I want, but... There was a time when I really loved him. I don't think I really knew him, but I did love him... there's still a part of me that remembers what that felt like." A hush of wind blew through the quiet graveyard. "Anyway, I just wanted to say... thanks. And I'll always remember what you did for me."   
  
As she walked away Katrina turned her face up towards the sun, feeling its rays warming her, and hoped that Jonathon was in a better place, because she knew she was.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
THE END 


End file.
